Excursions with Thoreau: Philosophy, Poetry, Religion - Hardcover

Mooney, Edward F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1501305654 ISBN 13: 9781501305658

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015

Synopsis

Excursions with Thoreau is a major new exploration of Thoreau's writing and thought that is philosophical yet sensitive to the literary and religious.

Edward F. Mooney's excursions through passages from Walden, Cape Cod, and his late essay “Walking” reveal Thoreau as a miraculous writer, artist, and religious adept. Of course Thoreau remains the familiar political activist and environmental philosopher, but in these fifteen excursions we discover new terrain. Among the notable themes that emerge are Thoreau's grappling with underlying affliction; his pursuit of wonder as ameliorating affliction; his use of the enigmatic image of “a child of the mist”; his exalting “sympathy with intelligence” over plain knowledge; and his preferring “befitting reverie”-not argument-as the way to be carried to better, cleaner perceptions of reality.

Mooney's aim is bring alive Thoreau's moments of reverie and insight, and to frame his philosophy as poetic and episodic rather than discursive and systematic.

About this title

Book Description:

A literary and philosophical exploration of Thoreau as a prose-poet and religious adept who carries us into fresh and unexpected communion with landscape, seascape, open sky, and what he calls "the unfathomable."

About the Author:

Edward F. Mooney is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Syracuse University, USA. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Kierkegaard's Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs (Editor and Introduction, 2009), Lost Intimacy in American Thought (Continuum, 2009), and Excursions with Kierkegaard (Bloomsbury, 2012).

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1501305654
• ISBN 13: 9781501305658
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296